


Lightning In My Head; Rain In My Hat

by Thimblerig



Series: What Is This Thing..? [4]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Humor, Occasional Flashes of Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-15 14:10:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13614990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: Five times a Musketeer tried to rectify d’Artagnan’s hatless state.





	1. "the wearing of the hat"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Anathema Device (notowned)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notowned/gifts).



> // I’m taking a short break from the Long Plotty One with this. Normal service shall resume soon.
> 
> // This is part of a series, but all you need to know is that in this ‘verse d’Artagnan is a Young Lady, passing as a Young Man, and that for a few months (starting late s1) she and Aramis have a Friends With Benefits arrangement.
> 
> // The title comes from a Tom Waits song.
> 
> // CW: some pronoun confusion; a little canon compliant angst; while mostly a gen story there's prob'ly going to be a scene where someone gets naked.

 

 _“It wasn't the wearing of the hat that counted so much as having one to wear. Every trade, every craft had its hat.”_    
  
Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad  
  
  


 

“Kicking, biting, gouging, it’s all good,” said Porthos, gripping the young Gascon’s shoulders, wiry through the thin grey shirt. D’Artagnan’s breath steamed white in the void of the grey air, the black trees, the white snow. Her _(his,_ Porthos corrected himself) _his_ body steamed also, the humours running high, the passion and the bloodlust, the fear, a dash of insecurity under it all. The kid’s first duel, he thought. Not nearly the first scrap or brawl or deathmatch, o’ course. But to lie awake at night planning out a battle and tracing the steps one might take, the stroke and counter-stroke, weighing the skill of a man. D’Artagnan’s body trembled slightly under his hands: fear, passion, bloodlust. Her - _his_ \- chin ticked up.

On the Gascon’s other side, Aramis bent his head, looking very Spanish in a dove-grey hat and a laced collar, and murmured confidently in her ear, “When this is over, we’ll buy you a hat.” D’Artagnan huffed a nervous laugh. Aramis flashed a sudden fox-grin and straightened the brown-and-ochre neckcloth about his protege's throat, fingers neat and gentle, primping.

Porthos tugged the wide black brim of his own hat to set it more firmly over the bandanna that wrapped his head. “‘Less you’d rather have best brandy,” he offered. He shared a worried look with Aramis behind the cadet’s head, keeping a soothing hand on d’Artagnan’s shoulder as Aramis did, as they would calm an anxious horse before battle.

Athos loomed in front of the trio, himself wrapped against the cold, doublet buttoned up, scarf drawn tight around his own vulnerable throat and his brown leather chapeau set at an impeccably rakish angle. “You don’t have to do this,” he cautioned, ever fair. “This is Musketeer business.”

Porthos could feel the young one swell under his hands: a warhorse collecting her weight ready to strike. “Brandy,” she told Porthos, briefly turning her head. “When it’s over I want brandy.” Shifting her grip on her sword, she nodded at Athos, who paced to the centre of the clearing, glanced coolly to the other side, where a Red Guard by the name of Francois was being prepared by his own seconds, and lifted a grubby handkerchief high.

He dropped it. Black hair flying, d’Artagnan ran into the fight.


	2. "ten thousand ways"

_“Now—Ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be dropped upon the ground, without any effect.—Had he flung it, or thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or squirted, or let it slip or fall in any possible direction under heaven,—or in the best direction that could be given to it,—had he dropped it like a goose—like a puppy—like an ass—or in doing it, or even after he had done, had he looked like a fool,—like a ninny—like a nicompoop—it had fail'd, and the effect upon the heart had been lost.”_

\- Laurence Sterne, _The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman_

 

Constance Bonacieux, _Madame_ Bonacieux, had several excellent hats, some prim, some proper, some pretty and reserved for display on Sundays. She had an adventurous heart and a head of sense and no millinery of hers - proper, pretty, or prudish - was affixed to her without the aid of a good hatpin, satisfying as it did both the demands of adventure (a length of sharpened steel) and sense. _Her_ headgear never went flying.

D’Artagnan, standing beside her landlady and carrying the good woman’s shopping basket, as a polite lodger might when escorting her to market, ventured to discourse on this topic with her comrades as they searched the little corner of the marketplace but was politely rebuffed.

“Enough of your cheek, young’un,” Porthos growled amiably from underneath a little haywagon.

“All I’m saying,” said d’Artagnan, “is that you don’t have to _fling_ them.”

Aramis’ head popped up from the hay. “D’Artagnan, please be reasonable. Who could ask us, in the passion and vigour of the moment, to set our hats _neatly on the ground_ before drawing steel on some scoundrel?”

“Wouldn’t do at all,” Porthos agreed, his voice muffled as he pulled himself out from the cart. “It would stifle the braggadocio. I can’t be having with my braggadocio stifled.”

“It never is,” Aramis said fondly, and brushed straw from his hair and off his long coat. “Maybe it was a different cart… Ah!” he added, looking up. Above them, hung from the corner of a second-story window like a great black bat, was Porthos’ hat. Without a second thought Aramis stepped onto the side of the cart, leapt for the hat, knocked its edge with a brush of his hand, and landed back on his wooden chariot with a neat click of his boots. It shifted beneath him suddenly and he teetered, pinwheeling his arms. Porthos caught him with a hand gripping his belt just as he caught the great flappy brim of the falling hat. Aramis crowned his friend with it.

Constance applauded.

“For my next trick,” said Aramis with a grin, “we’ll try it with a blindfold.”

“Yours went into the alley,” Porthos said thoughtfully.

“I thought it landed behind the stall that sold carrots?”

“No, then the lavender seller kicked it onto the turnip barrow when she ducked away from the Red Guard that was coming at her.”

“He was very clumsy, I thought. That’s no way to introduce yourself to a lady.”

“Yeah,” said Porthos, abashed, “I shouldn’t have thrown him quite so hard.”

“Being flung through the air is _no excuse_ for rudeness.” Aramis hopped down from the wagon and stepped over the Red Guard in question, who lay in a puddle still groaning and clutching his head. “I hope you’re ashamed of yourself,” he told the man severely. But there was no turnip barrow in sight.

“When you were throwing knives at that giant attacking Athos, the man Constance tripped stepped funny on a loose apple and knocked it rolling,” Porthos said helpfully. “An then, it went into the alley.”

“And _thank you_ for helping, Constance,” Aramis said significantly. “Yes, yes, thank you,” the others muttered, and Constance blushed prettily.

Aramis disappeared into the little alley.

“I think I saw Cousin Giles’ business partner’s second daughter steering a flock of ducks through there while d’Artagnan was wrestling the jewellery-thief,” Constance cautioned. “She might have taken it (Euphrasie’s always been a bit soft on hats.)”

“I thought that was Monsieur Bontemps’ eldest?” asked Porthos, righting a fallen stall and neatly restacking some fallen jars of honey.

“That too,” said Constance, “they married last month. It’s all one big family now.”

"My congratulations," said Porthos, tapping his hatbrim with his fingers. "I hope they’re all very happy."

“No need to help,” came Aramis’ muffled voice. “I think I see…” He came out, brushing the grey brim of his hat and stroking ineffectually at the broken feather. “Oh,” he said sadly, “oh the poor thing. _And,”_ he said indignantly to Porthos, “it wasn’t even turnips. It was… _skirret.”_

“You need to get over your prejudices,” Porthos told him.

“That isn’t prejudice,” said Aramis, “it’s simple fact. Skirret -”

“ - is an inferior vegetable,” continued Constance. “Everybody knows that.”

“I quite like skirret,” said d’Artagnan, farmer’s offspring that she was. Constance and Aramis looked at her. “What?” d’Artagnan asked. “It's good with bacon and lentils.” They shook their heads sadly.

“We should get you a hat,” said Porthos, changing the subject hurriedly. “I know a hat seller owes me a favour.”

“I’d just have to throw it away again,” said d’Artagnan, shrugging. “There doesn’t seem much point.” She tossed her head so that her glossy black hair fluttered in the slight breeze and settled around her ears. “Hey, where did Athos go?”

Aramis, hanging his damaged headgear carefully on the pommel of his sword, looked blank.

“Talking to the City Watch?” Porthos asked.

“I think he went after the juggler,” said Constance, frowning.

Two streets over, surrounded by a flock of white ducks, Athos crouched uneasily, holding his sturdy leather hat before him. His eyes dropped, then lifted. In front of him Euphrasie Bontemps, neatly put together in a grey dress and starched linen cap, examined another duck egg for cracks then placed it carefully inside with the others. “I should put some straw in there for padding,” she said fretfully, tucking a springy black curl back behind one ear.

“They’re not hatching, are they?” he said with alarm.

“... N-no…?”


	3. "willing to be jaunty"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Notes: There’s no smut and not actually a lot of graphic nudity, but this is def. a ‘people in an intimate relationship’ chapter. (Also, a brief mention of the difficulties of presenting a gender that doesn’t match one’s jiggly bits.)

_“Some hats can only be worn if you're willing to be jaunty, to set them at an angle and to walk beneath them with a spring in your stride as if you're only a step away from dancing. They demand a lot of you.”_  
  
Neil Gaiman, _Anansi Boys_

 

It wasn’t that he didn’t hear boots outside, echoing on the set of low steps that led in from his little garden, but the tread and pace of one of his friends was long engraved in Aramis’ ears. Once Aramis had found sleep d’Artagnan, Porthos, Athos - even Constance, now - could have found his spare key, walked inside, robbed him blind, and probably danced a jig on the way out with the ill-gotten gains stacked in their arms, all without stirring him in his low wide bed. It was only a determined tugging of the sheet draped across his shoulders and caught underneath his belly that brought Aramis, yawning, to crack one eye to the dimness of the pre-dawn.  
  
D’Artagnan crouched in front of him, looking at him intently. “I need to borrow your bath,” she said quietly.  
  
Aramis yawned again. “In the cupboard. Soap and a new sponge on th’high shelf. Help yourse…” and he drifted off to a discreet clang, the splash of water, and a brisk scrubbing.  
  
He woke more fully a few minutes later. D’Artagnan was standing in the wide, shallow metal dish he kept for bathing, feet dabbled in the rinse water, body cloaked in shadows. She had the flannel towel up around her shoulders and twisted as she rubbed herself dry. Not the kind of man to refrain from enjoying the view, Aramis rolled on his side and propped his head on one hand to sleepily watch the shift of muscles in her long, lean back, the appearance and dis- of a small breast, or a red and healing scar, the flex of a thigh, as the towel shifted and moved.  
  
“Constance has her own tub, doesn’t she?” he asked, blinking crusted sleep out of his eyes.  
  
“Constance hired a maid for the month,” answered d’Artagnan, “and she’s worse than Bonacieux for walking into a room without knocking. ‘Nothing I hasn’t seen afore,’” she mimicked derisively. “‘What can a nice young gentleman like yoursel’ have ta hide?’ And then she _winks._ Ghastly woman.” In deference to her host she refrained from shaking the water out of her hair like a dog, but used the towel for one last brisk rub.  
  
“You could -”  
  
“Constance is so happy to have someone around for the heavy cleaning and she doesn’t need extra fuss,” d’Artagnan said, padding across Aramis' bedroom to hang the towel up to dry. “‘Cause I _don’t_ have anything to hide, right? Nobody needs a scandal, so I -”  
  
“ - walk in nothing but the splendour God granted you through a gentleman’s rooms instead,” replied Aramis, granting her a small, wicked grin.  
  
She tossed the water in the tub out the window and set it back in its place, tossing him a grin of her own. “We can’t have that,” she said innocently, and paced across the dim room to a stack of his gear. She bent and picked up his feathered Musketeer hat. With a twirl she’d learned from Aramis, she set it on her damp head at a jaunty angle and wandered through the door to the eating room. “Breakfast?” she called behind her.  
  
Aramis yawned again. “Later,” he promised. “It’s my morning off.” He rubbed his eyes then collapsed comfortably back into his mattress, drifting into a state where the crunch of an apple and the pouring of liquid seemed very far away.  
  
The last he remembered of the pre-dawn interlude was d’Artagnan stretching over him to hang the hat on a bedpost, settling her long body behind him, and kissing the back of his neck before drifting into a sleep of her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // _standing in the wide, shallow metal dish he kept for bathing, feet dabbled in the rinse water_ \- I blame this chapter on Daisy Ninja Girl, who made me look at Degas paintings of women washing and towelling themselves dry. (Ref: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/Edgar-degas-the-tub-1886.jpg ) I couldn’t find any other references to the wide shallow bowls he keeps painting with those women but they seem an efficient and low-cost compromise between ‘wipedown with a rag and a basin of water’ and the space and money requirements of Full Tub and I imagine they were in use for more than just artistry.


	4. "where you lose your hat..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a sad one, I'm very sorry.

_Minsk: Und any plan vere hyu lose hyu hat iz?_  
_Gorb: A bad plan?_  
_Minsk: Right again!_

\- Phil and Kaja Foglio, _Girl Genius_  
  


Dramatic exits are all very well but there are practicalities.

D’Artagnan found in Aramis’ rooms a small chaos of unearthed belongings and books in boxes, most already marked with the charity or other recipient to whom they would go. The Musketeer - former Musketeer - stood in the eye of it, motionless, temporarily still.

“Aramis,” she called softly.

His head turned and his eyes focussed on her. “I’m not changing my mind,” he cautioned.

“I’m not asking you to.” Then she added, “But you’re bleeding into your shirt.” He didn’t even blink at that, but let her chivvy him into a seat and peel back his shirt cuffs to show where the cuts and grazes left from trying to rip his hands through manacles had reopened and bled through the light bandages.

None needed stitching so she bathed them and covered them with the astringent rose-and-turpentine ointment Aramis used to make up for wounds, rewrapping his wrists with soft cloths. He sat still and quiet under it, looking only at the wall, until she tapped him lightly on the shoulder, tugged at his shirt, and said, “The rest.”

“No.”

“I'm not a fool,” she said. “You were in prison for days.” Constance still wouldn't speak of her time in the cells; she just woke in the night, flinching. At Aramis’ headshake, stiff, against a shoulder held too high and the careful movements of bruised ribs hidden under his shirt, she snorted in disgust. “Has Athos, at least, seen to them?”

“Yes.”

The answer came too quickly. He was a terrible liar, except when it mattered. _“Aramis.”_

His eyes glinted hard obsidian. “Let be, child, there's nothing that will kill me.”

“You always do this,” she said in frustration, then, tying the strings of his shirt cuffs over the bandages, “Douai’s right on the border, are you sure they'll give you a place?”

“The Abbot wrote me last month,” Aramis said distantly, gaze shifting back to his wall. “He knew my father and said they'd take me.”

“Last month,” she said slowly.

“Did I ever tell you my parents wanted me to be a nun?” he asked with desperate cheerfulness.

“You've been planning on running for a while now.”

“Thinking. Exploring the options. Working things through.”

_“Aramis.”_

“Athos was right,” he said, eyes flicking away again. “And Porthos was right. And I, even in my dafter moments, knew better. It’s just… hard to walk away. Better to regret the world entire, perhaps. If I’d left a month ago - “

“Rochefort would _still_ have found a rod to beat us with and we’d have been down a marksman,” she said flatly. “Your shoulders, admirable as they are, are not wide enough for his sins as well.”

“They carry enough,” he said, low and biting.

D’Artagnan bit her lip.

“Yes, I was fucking the governess,” Aramis said.

The young woman did not flinch at the crudity. Instead, she cocked her head and asked, “She never did seem your type: I wouldn’t have picked her for your lover at court in a hundred years… Did you seduce her? Or was there blackmail involved?”

He tilted his body away from her. “It was… complicated." He added, savagely, "You want a blow-by-blow, do you? A titillation of curiosity?”

“I am not your confessor, only your friend.”

He looked down.

“What do you want, Aramis?”

“Forgiveness.”

“What do you need?”

“Your friendship.”

In the gathering evening, a small bird in the little garden outside began to sing, throwing silver notes over the rougher mundanity of the larger city. D’Artagnan laced her fingers through his hair, tracing the shape of his skull, and felt him tremble. “Always,” she breathed, and touched her lips to his forehead.

For a breath and a breath they stayed that way, still as figures cast in bronze, then he broke. “You shouldn’t be nice to me,” Aramis said lightly, shifting his weight, “or I’ll never learn better.”

“I make my own choices,” d'Artagnan said direly. Mouth wry, she added, “You know, if I don't get a letter you arrived safely, I'll just have to assume you fell into trouble and go looking for you. You know me, alone on the roads - that's assuming I even get leave and don't just slope off - _anything_ could happen...”

“Imp.” But his eyes softened. “You'll get your letter, though I won't promise a second.” Stiffly, he stood and looked with disfavour around his rooms. “The carter and bone-and-rag men come in half an hour and I need to finish packing. You’ll look after Porthos for me? He, he doesn’t always manage well, when people walk away.”

D’Artagnan nodded, and found an empty crate. “I will watch his back, I promise. And I’ll look after the kid as much as I can. And -”

“You’ll take my hat,” interjected Aramis, crowning her with the garment, dove-grey, old but carefully brushed, garnished with a long pheasant feather.

She tipped it off and covered her heart with it. “I shall keep it _for_ you,” she said seriously.

_“D’Artagnan…”_

“I’m just exploring the options,” she said lightly. “And besides, my hair is far, far too pretty to cover.”

He smiled at that, and ruffled the hair in question.

Together, they packed Aramis’ life away.


	5. "...born to wear..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> // I based some of this off one of the unaired scenes from the 3.10 script.
> 
> // There's a certain level of tooth-rotting fluff in this chapter, and I feel I should probably apologise.

_“There are some things one is born to wear, and I had obviously been fated to wear this hat.”_

\- Connie Willis, _To Say Nothing of the Dog_

There was a game d’Artagnan had played as a child, in the high stony fields of her father’s farm. It was a boisterous, raucous game and she had loved it when they had all joined hands and the one in front had started to run, turning as he did so, that the line spiralled inward and the far end curled around like the tail of a whip and all the speed picked up and turned and _threw…_

Boisterous, raucous child that she was, d’Artagnan - Charlotte, then - had volunteered for the tail more often than not, running ever faster as all the force of those who went before passed into her, juddering over the dry grass and stones, clinging white-knuckled to a friend’s sweaty palm until someone’s hand finally slipped and she was flung, breathless, skidding out into the world. She hadn’t feared the fall, then (and her knees were always scabbed, her skirts torn _anyway.)_ But she was a child, and much loved, and had not known that sometimes, when you lose your grip, the people don’t come back.

 

**

 

Arm in arm d’Artagnan walked with her wife through the market district, feeling the breeze on the back of her neck and the sun on her hair. Constance looked particularly vivid today, the spring light making bright her auburn hair and her new dress, high-collared and of sturdy fabrics, because Constance was nothing if not practical, but cut with style in rich browns and brilliant Musketeer blues. There had been rain that night and the city was still fresh with it, washed clean, and, though d’Artagnan could see scars left from the war, the faces of the children running among the stalls were rounder than they had been a year ago. They stopped next to a new fountain built by the First Minister, near the awning of a dumpling stall run by a friend of Sylvie’s, and d’Artagnan peered around curiously.

“Is this…?” she asked.

“Where we met, yes,” said Constance comfortably.

“I actually _have_ five livres today, if you’ll kiss me.”

“Oh, you degenerate. You were going to stiff me on the bill, too?”

D’Artagnan shrugged impishly, a shopping basket hanging forgotten from the crook of her arm. “I was in a fix. There were circumstances. I’m very sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“It’s true,” d’Artagnan said, bowing her head repentantly, “I have no regrets, since it is how I met you.”

Constance whacked her friend lightly on the arm then slid her hand down until they were clasped, palm to palm. “I can’t say I’ve no regrets,” she said, soft and honest, “but I’m so very, very glad I walked this road with you.” She saw d’Artagnan blink hard, moisture in her coffee-rich eyes. “How goes the recruiting?” she said, more briskly.

“Every time I get a good one trained up,” d’Artagnan said with frustration, “Porthos whisks them off. He’s all… general-y and strikes such a glorious figure in his armour. My Captain hat barely competes."

“You insult Athos’ headgear? Is _that_ why you hardly ever wear it?”

“No, no, I would _never,”_ she said hurriedly. “I’m just… it’s so beautiful. I’m afraid of getting it dirty.”

Constance cackled.

“I’ll tell him that, in our next letter.”

D’Artagnan’s eyes widened. “No, please, anything, he and Sylvie’d never let us - me - live that down.”

Constance beamed.

 _“Stop, thief!”_ On the other side of the square a narrow, lithe figure in a grubby smock, large cap, and ragged pants wove rapidly through the crowds, a cloth sack in one hand and a large apple in the other. Temporarily at bay between two stalls, the escaping thief dropped the apple and scooped up a fallen broomstick with a fine-boned hand, fending off three irate stallholders with impressive dexterity and skill before leaping over a table of honey jars and threading again through the crowds.

Constance grinned.

 _“Oh_ no,” d’Artagnan protested. “That is clearly a person of poor moral character.”

 _“You_ were running from the city watch.”

“Extenuating circumstances!”

“You can teach the kid better…”

“I have little moral character of my own to impart to a growing boy,” d’Artagnan said ominously.

“Then you’re fine,” said Constance, with a certain amount of surprise as a few strands of springy black hair slipped out of the fleeing thief's loose cap, “on account of that’s not a boy that’s young Euphrasie Bontemps. She must be feeding her stepsibs.”

Her husband looked at her sideways, then retrieved a beautiful purple hat from the basket and set it carefully on her head. She balanced on the balls of her feet, breathed through her nose, and when she let it out she was an inch taller, the Captain of the People’s Own Musketeers, and when she strode forward the people parted before her like water around the keel of a fine ship…

 

**

 

Euphrasie skidded on the cobbles and turned it into a roll, scraping a knee but keeping the sack of pilfered food tight in one hand and the cap on her head. Things had been rough since her parents died but she was managing, _thank you very much._ A butcher and a baker loomed over her, red-faced and irate, and she felt a twinge of regret - she wasn’t the only one with family to feed, after all, but…

A tap of a lean brown hand on their shoulders and they parted, as the lanky Captain stepped between them. “Hey, kid,” Captain d’Artagnan said easily, “if you want an honest job, the Garrison needs a new messenger. We’ll wear the leather off your feet, but we can clear your -” the Captain glanced at the tradesmen - _“market credit_  as part of your wages.” The butcher sighed; the baker nodded reluctantly. Euphrasie hesitated, still clutching the sack. Unbidden, her eyes flicked to the sword slung at d’Artagnan’s hip, the coils and twists of its hilt its only ornamentation but it was _beautiful._ The Captain widened a generous mouth into a grin and touched the feathered brim of a rakish hat. “Did I mention we teach all our runners weaponry? It’s only fair, the interesting places we send ‘em. There’s all the apples you can eat and maybe a new hat one day.”

Euphrasie nodded convulsively. D’Artagnan held out a lean, callused hand. _“Hold tight,”_ she ordered. “You go faster that way...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it. I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it.
> 
> Cheers, all :-)


End file.
